Mars Orbiter Fails to Make Probe Contact (News and a Grrrrr

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Europe-Mars.html

January 7, 2004
Mars Orbiter Fails to Make Probe Contact
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 10:37 a.m. ET

1 DARMSTADT, Germany (AP) -- A European spacecraft orbiting Mars failed to pick up a signal from the Beagle 2 probe Wednesday, leaving a saddened mission control without word from the lander since it was spun off toward the Red Planet last month.

Flying 195 miles above the site where the Beagle 2 was to have landed, the Mars Express orbiter reported no transmissions from the probe, which was programmed to emit a steady beeping.

..more at story...

And now a Grrrr from a RW Nut from CNN


http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/analysis/toons/2004/01/lang/index.html

When it comes the the American space program, I'm as nationalistic as a 4-door patriot.

(A 4-door patriot is someone with an American flag on all four doors of his SUV.)

but we've lost a hell of a lot more probes and landers than they have - with 'good ol' US technology'.

which is equally relevant.

I guess I may be the only one who sees knowledge as a goal rather than nationalistic advancement.

Edited for spelling.

displeased at the French bashing that is going on, right?

.

I fail to see the humor, the probe was British made - yet it failed and thus has to be French hahahaha.

And what about this?
Air bags snarl Spirit's progress on Mars
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1073498624270_84/?hub=World

However, the dialogue transcribed on the Beagle2 homepage is actual again - all of a sudden:
--snip
A cardboard model of Beagle featured in early TV broadcasts. Johnny Vaughan, Channel 4 The Big Breakfast....

Vaughan: “It's only made of cardboard”

Pillinger: “British ingenuity”

Vaughan: “British ingenuity—the first to send a cardboard probe”

Pillinger: “well when we get the budget we will make it out of something more substantial”
--snap
http://www.beagle2.com/technology/index.htm

French bashing always makes me Grrrrrrrrrr.

you would think France was some evil empire or something instead of friends who helped us win the REVOLUTIONARY WAR for crap sake

It's still a good laugh!

while the Mars Express orbiter, which is working fine (so far) was assembled in France.

Beagle 2 was always a 'risky' project - it had a very small budget, in both money and weight. A shame it seems not to have worked out, whether through sheer bad luck of the precise place it landed, or through equipment failure.

we'll see who get the last laugh...

I'm so excited about those two US landers Spirit and Opportunity.
I've been following religiously the news about the landing, the first pictures, etc. and I think it's fantastic what the guys (and girls) at JPL have achieved. Congrats to the scientists who made this possible.
I can tell you that this is exactly what I needed after a year of bad news ;(

And besides: Even though Beagle 2 may be lost, the main mission continues with the Mars Express orbiter, which will map the surface of Mars with 'state of the art' instruments and will deliver great new insight into Mars' geomorphology.

Seems there are some exciting times ahead, at least for the scientific community :)

"the main mission continues with the Mars Express orbiter, which will map the surface of Mars with 'state of the art' instruments and will deliver great new insight into Mars' geomorphology."


Many people seem to forget that the Beagle was a late addition to the main mission of the Express orbiter. It's also a real shame that in all likelihood the Beagle will fail, cause it's mission would have provided a lot of valuable data about Mars.

The two US missions are a very cool thing though, no doubt about it.

i would love to meet one of them.

They're gonna fingerprint it next.

they nuked the moon once

As I recall only 1 NASA Mars lander has failed, that being the one from 3 or 4 years ago.

With Viking 1 and 2 in 1976, the much smaller Pathfinder in 1997, and now the Spirit in 2004, that makes NASA 4 for 5 on Mars landers.

But it's possible I could be forgetting one. A couple other NASA Mars missions have failed in recent years, but I don't think either were landers.

:shrug:

--Peter

Failure again!!!

Way to go Mars!!!

The U.S. rover is up and running and sending back great pictures. Was it sarcasm that I didn't get?

There's this freeper lady at work who's always bitching about how useless the space program is, and how it's the biggest waste of money and whatnot. But she was gung ho about the war and perfectly ok with spending tens of billions of dollars in Iraq to make it safe for Halliburton. 'Cause, you know, it's payback for 9/11! :crazy:

Now that would speed up Mars exploration....

...that was for the whole mission.

The cost of the current US mission is 800mil. USD.

Oh, and the "French" prt of the mission (launch) worked like a champ. It was the UK-built Beagle unit that failed.

So yes, what you're seeing is anti-French propaganda.

This is from the NASA site, a feature called Mars Exploration Timeline. Other people may come up with slightly different numbers, depending on how you define failure and success, etc. Some missions I have considered to be in both columns. The Beagle mission is a good example - the orbiter is OK, but the lander doesn't seem to have succeeded.

U.S. 9 successes, 9 failures
USSR/Russia 3 successes, 16 failures
Other 1 success, 2 failures

Note that the earliest attempts at Mars were in 1960 (USSR). The first successful mission was a U.S. flyby in 1964. A lot of the early failures were failure on launch.

So the U.S. has done better than the rest, but still only about a 50% success rate.

I wonder what the mud like substance that Spirit found will turn out to be.

"Mr. Lang,
Your cartoon on the failure of the European Mars mission is factually incorrect, since none of the Beagle parts were made in France. But I'm sure you know about that, and chose to ignore it because your bosses want anti-France hysteria in the USA.
Don't worry, I won't tell anyone in America the truth.
Good luck to you and your nation, you need it.
Thanks"


you too can email him here: editserv@fwi.com

There is so much to learn. There is so much to do. It really won't hurt to have more hands to the task.

It is also very painful to put so much heart and effort into a project and have it come to nothing.

We know that feeling. Does it make us less or more to acknowledge it in others?